The death knell for ClimateGate

Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls (again) for ClimateGate. The Independent Climate Chage Email Review, the third such body to look into East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU), has released its report stating that:

Their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt.

My exceedingly lazy analysis of the document (it is the third report to exonerate them, after all), the phrase ‘no evidence’ appears no less than 17 times. For die hards, Hot Topic does a good overview of the report.

More interesting to me was the gossip from George Monbiot, who himself had called for Phil Jones’ scalp:

Overall it shows, in most cases persuasively, that there is no evidence of fraud, manipulation or a lack of rigour and honesty on the part of the CRU scientists. The science is sound; the IPCC has not been compromised.

So was I wrong to call, soon after this story broke, for Jones’s resignation? I think, on balance, that I was. He said some very stupid things. At times he squelched the scientific principles of transparency and openness. He might have broken the law. But he was also provoked beyond endurance. I think, in the light of everything I’ve now seen and read, that if I were to write that article again I’d conclude that Phil Jones should hang on – but only just. I hope the last review gives him some peace.

Some peace indeed. All the scientists deserve it. And what about those New Zealand scientists who have been dragged through the mud by politicians hiding behind parliamentary privilege? Russel asked the other week if they would apologise and withdraw. I doubt it. At least Rupert Murdoch did.

I also doubt whether the frothing climate denial blogosphere here in NZ will apologise either. No doubt this is just more proof of the ever widening global conspiracy. These things tend to become a self fulfilling prophecy. We few who know the truth must stand against the whole world! (and the scientific evidence)

Frankly, I’m over it. Unfortunately, man made climate change is far from over. It’s just beginning.

I guess James Hansen is important to you but who is he and why no link to his work?

Didn’t he do the muppets?

No, that’s Henson. Hansen is considered the scientist with the most mana on climate change, and was the one who brought it to the attention of the US Congress in the 80’s. Bill McKibben went to Hansen before he launched 450.org, to make sure he had the right ppm of carbon in the atmosphere we needed to keep below. Hansen told him he’d had to revise the number downwards, which is why it’s now 350.org. All in Storms of My Grandchildren in which he also explains climate science for the lay person very clearly. Everyone should read this book.

While global climate is a certainty, we have ALL been let down by the UN and IPCC regarding the truth of the matter. Their “peer review” and selective promotion of facts to suit their viewpoint have proved a marketing disaster.

The skeptics have had a field day because of it.

Gerrit, I have to disagree.

The IPCC was as careful, in such a massive documentation of scientific endeavors, as any group made up of humans can possibly be. The errors that have been identified are miniscule in effect. They have no bearing whatsoever on the science and very little on the expected effects.

Perfection is a VERY unreasonable demand to make…

…yet ANYTHING less than perfection is going to be lumbered by the “faux-skeptics”. The same ones who were paid to obfuscate the science around tobacco, and asbestos, and all those other great products that big money was profiting from.

…and you are buying the line of reasoning that they are selling. No mistake, they are professional and persuasive liars, but the key word here is LIARS.

The reason the people of this planet aren’t convinced has nothing to do with the process at the IPCC, and everything to do with these liars, their agenda, their theft of e-mails, their misrepresentation of facts and the money that is behind them.

That there are some honest and well-meaning folks inveigled into supporting the lies isn’t too surprising, that always happens too, but the bottom line is that the liars arranged for “climategate” to happen, they had stolen the mail months before it was released, and they calculated the releases to kill the process at Copenhagen, and they knew as the rest of us finally learned, that the real content of those e-mails was quite different from the spin they presented.

There really is no limit to how p!ssed off I am Gerrit. None. At. All.

While global climate is a certainty, we have ALL been let down by the UN and IPCC regarding the truth of the matter. Their “peer review” and selective promotion of facts to suit their viewpoint have proved a marketing disaster.

The skeptics have had a field day because of it.

Why should anyone believe anything the IPCC say, or swallow the rubbish those promoters of ETS in suggesting that paying for carbon emmisions will do anything but line the pockets of those people you so ralley against.

Better marketing would have seen the human populace swing in behind accually doing something about global warming.

Instead they are sceptical and have every right to be.

Valis,

I guess James Hansen is important to you but who is he and why no link to his work?

Yeah we should just ignore James Hansen then. He thinks if we don’t lock the coal in the ground, we’re on a path to creating an atmosphere like that of Venus once the feedbacks start kicking in. But what would he know.

Add to that the ETS, that 90% of people think is a dogs breakfast, and why would people believe in global warming?

Given that my submission on the ETS basically called the people sponsoring the changes to it criminals (not criminally incompetent but thieves to be sure) I can attest to the fact that there are a LOT of Greens who reckon it is even worse than a “dog’s breakfast”

Understanding that this has nothing whatsoever to do with who is causing what warming is important.

focussing on something like this in response to a species (ours) threatening problem

Global warming is not going to wipe out the human species. It may well wipe out (and some would argue we should let happen)5.9 billion, but somewhere in the deepest Sahara desert, Borneo rainforest, Amazon river or Urewera bushland will be people who are adaptable to change and restart the colonisation of the earth.

Call it what you want. It may not be the kind of conspiracy purposefully organised to some dastardly end, rather it just business as usual – greed. But once it’s certain that the outcome is death and destruction, it seems ridiculous to quibble over the best descriptive term.

Jeez, next it will the the same people who orchestrated 911 being responsible for global warming.

That’s beneath your intelligence to say, Gerrit, or so I’d like to think.

And how is a Green MP going on a study trip to the USA helping in reducing carbon emmisions?

Greens have never said there should be no travel. Again, focussing on something like this in response to a species (ours) threatening problem is a good way to be seen as an intellectual dwarf.

Real points here. The Dutch made the mistake themselves,and the IPCC section on impacts does tend to emphasize the negatives but I didn’t read it the way the Dutch mob did…

Yes the Dutch made a mistake (and for the nation of my birth to do this when it is of vital national importance) is unforgiveable.

Notice that those organisations who had provided the wrong information are no longer in existance?

What makes it worse for the IPCC is that their “scientist” did no double check the Dutch “scientist” work. Same for heat related deaths in Australia. They did not check the accuracy nor the relevance of the data (peer review falls down big time).

That is why the reports are a whitewash. They overlook the most important. That externally provided data was not checked by the IPCC.

A fundamental mistake that they are now exposed too and will suffer the consequences for.

And meanwhile I’m wait for the rising tides to bring the foreshore to my front steps.

Pity that those people between me and the high tide line dont want to move as surely they would if the IPCC reports were factual and peer reviewed accurately.

And therin lies the problem. It is not conspirators that are derailing the IPCC, they are doing it themselves.

You can carry on being a “denier” that the IPCC had a monumental public relations meltdown on how facts and outcomes were presented, your call.

The general public (especially those between the new high tide line and my front gate) no longer believes in global warming, not becasue it is not happening just the at the presentation of the “facts” have now been exposed as “enhanced”.

Add to that the ETS, that 90% of people think is a dogs breakfast, and why would people believe in global warming?

Is there a conspiracy to promote global warming so that the general public can be conned out of their hard earned pesos?

Lets follow that money trail if you believe that the people with the money and the power are against the IPCC.

I think you may well find the same people involved, hedging bets each way while Rome burns.

The economist clan DOES have a problem with reality. I’ve been p!ssed off at them since my prof back in Uni told me that the laws of thermodynamics were irrelevant to economics. Their apologies for the system that systematically rapes their mother, and steals from most of their fellow humans, simply ring false.

Real points here. The Dutch made the mistake themselves,and the IPCC section on impacts does tend to emphasize the negatives but I didn’t read it the way the Dutch mob did… and these reports were not “whitewash”.

They are proof that the issue with Climategate, and it is a real issue, is that the people lying to you are Watt and his ilk, not the scientists. The people with the agenda and running a conspiracy are, surprise, the people with money and power who have hired guns like CEI working for them to ensure that they keep their money and power. People to whom conspiracies, lying, obfuscation and propaganda come second nature, not people who are dedicated to finding out the truth about the way the universe works and who can’t be herded any more than cats.

See… it is now a diversion into attacks on the messenger, as the science has remained inviolate throughout. The next stage (if it were like their other campaigns) would be the lawsuits for damages being lost and their companies going BK, but they have a winner this time… the damages won’t be admissible in court until they occur, long after the criminals are dead of natural causes. So they get away with rape and theft and the murder of children in the name of their sacred GDP.

Hmmm… not my most temperate language I suppose, but I am extraordinarily p!ssed off at these jacka55es.

– the rate at which plants and microorganisms produce CO2 in ecosystems from tropical rainforests to savannah does not even double when the temperature increases by 10°C from one week to the next.

Is one of a good dozen feedback mechanisms that are possible and far from the most important one. Methane Clathrate burps from arctic and sub-sea reservoirs, changes in albedo due to loss of ice cover… those things aren’t “proved to be rubbish”, they aren’t even mentioned. Proof in science doesn’t come with your level of certainty either.

As for the Telegraph… Delingpole has delusions of grandeur. He’s smarter than all the scientists who ever lived but he hasn’t got the sense God gave a Rutabaga.

Explain to me how the existence or non-existence of the MWP has any relevance to the current warming process? Only by making the blatantly false assumption that Climate Scientists attribute all warming (and cooling) to CO2 can one even imagine that it has relevance… and knowing what did or did not happen back then is fraught with difficulty. You do realize that Mann and Briffa disagree on such details, that Briffa thinks there could have been a MWP about as warm as now.

The thing is that everyone knows (except Delingpole and you) that it doesn’t matter unless you also know what else was happening then, and we don’t. All we have are proxies, not retroactive thermometers, radiometers, spectrometers or othermometers. So the most one can actually say about the MWP is that it MIGHT have been warmer and nobody knows why. Any stronger statement is as misleading as missing error bars.

But we know about NOW pretty darned well. We have the CO2 and CH4 measurements, we have the insolation levels, we have argos.

Which all say it is warming, as do the scientists, even including most of those those who are playing contrarian games.